Landfall
by Dragon's Daughter 1980
Summary: He wrote to his sister, "After the attempted drowning a few days ago, Pegasus hasn't set out to kill us recently." What he didn't know was that he was dying. SPOILERS for the Shrine.
1. Tropical Storm Warning

**Landfall**

By Dragon's Daughter 1980

**Disclaimer**: Other than being a fan, I have absolutely _nothing_ to do with Stargate: Atlantis in _any_ way, shape or form.

**Author's Note:** In meteorology, a landfall occurs when a hurricane or typhoon hits land. I thought it an appropriate metaphor for this story.

**Spoiler Warning**: _The Shrine_

* * *

"You're in a good mood tonight."

Kaleb Miller wrapped his arms around his wife's waist and pressed a kiss on her cheek. She hummed happily as he continued, leaving a trail of kisses down the side of her neck to her collarbone.

"Yes," she responded rinsing off the stack of soapy dishes in the sink, "One of Meredith's emails came today."

"Oh?" he tried to sound nonjudgmental, but Jennie Miller née McKay was certainly no one's fool. She sighed quietly, looking down at the serving platter she held in her hands, and said resignedly, "It's not his fault."

Rather than rehashing their months-long argument, he swallowed back his sharp words and choose hug her briefly instead, "I know. I just…" _still have nightmares about losing you,_ he added silently as he held her,_ still need to make sure you don't vanish in the middle of the night._

"It won't happen again." He let go of her and picked up a dry dish towel instead, drying off each plate as she handed it to him.

"You can't promise that," he told her softly. She hesitated for a second before she rinsed off the next dish.

"There's something I didn't tell you."

"What?" he asked, sharper than he intended, his mind already conjuring a wide variety of possible scenarios, all of them worse than the last.

"Afterwards," she confessed quietly, picking up a plate, "he talked me into getting a transmitter implanted… so if someone tries again, they'll know where I am and get me out."

He exhaled, letting go of a breath he wasn't even aware that he was holding. Kaleb mulled the situation over in his mind, and he had to say, he didn't exactly like it. There were half a dozen responses he had on his tongue, but he kept his silence. If the knowledge that she had a quick escape in any dangerous situation helped her sleep better at night, he wasn't going to ruin that for her by pointing out the loopholes in the plan or the possibility she placed herself at _increased_ risk for kidnapping. After all, the transmitter would allow _anyone_ with a receiver to track her movements, wouldn't it?

"What, like 'beam me up, Scotty'?" he asked, trying to keep the conversation light and hide his worry. They could talk about his fears another time, when the memories of her kidnapping weren't still so fresh in their minds. She smiled a little, "Well, there would have to be something to beam me up _to_, but yes, something like that."

"So what was in that email then? Did he verify your calculations?"

She shook her head, "No, he was just nice."

"Nice?"

"Yes Kaleb," she said. Rather than being offended on her brother's behalf, she sounded more amused and fondly exasperated than anything. "Meredith is perfectly capable of being nice. He just forgets sometimes. As a matter of fact," she added, "he likes you."

"Oh really?" Kaleb raised his eyebrows in skepticism, "Because I seem to remember that I'm the 'irresponsible idiot that knocked you up' and ruined your potential to change the world."

She rolled her eyes as she washed her hands and dried them on a towel, "That was before he met you and Madison. Besides, I have proof."'

"May I see it?" he half-teased her, knowing that she probably couldn't show the email to him, national security and all that. After putting the cooking pot in the sink and adding a little soap, he turned on the hot water and fished out the sponge from its little holder. He let it soak for a few minutes before he began to scrub at the food stains.

"In fact," she said, "you can." Jeannie went over to her laptop and turned it on.

"So how is your work going?" he asked as she sorted through her computer's hard drive for the letter. She frowned a little, "It's getting there. The review process is a little tedious and while my brother's insufferably arrogant sometimes, he doesn't have a monopoly on being insufferable or arrogant."

"Just on being both?"

"Sadly, no, but it's almost over, thank goodness."

"And then?"

"And then I submit the article to a couple of journals and hope someone decides to publish it."

"That's it?"

She nodded, hitting a few buttons on the keyboard, "That's it."

"But you left out the part where you win the Nobel Prize in Physics and because this famous groundbreaker physicist with a handsome husband and a pretty daughter." He washed his hands of the soapy sods and dried them.

She laughed, "We'll see."

He went over to where she was standing and kissed her, "Well, in my humble opinion, the smarter McKay should get that prize first, and then the two of you can share the next one."

"You're impossible," she teased fondly, kissing him this time. "Madison's in bed?"

"Yeah."

"I'll go up and check," she said, drawing away from him. "Just hit save and close when you're done."

"Anything I shouldn't read?" he asked, half-joking. She shook her head, "No. There's a section in there about my work, which I barely understand so…"

He grinned in self-deprecation, "So I don't have a chance."

"If you figure it out, let me know, Mr. English Professor," she responded with a smirk, "but anything else, I deleted for you."

"All right," he clicked on the document window, bringing up onto the screen. "I'll be right up then."

She left the room, leaving him alone with her brother's email. Kaleb sighed, still wondering just she meant by "nice" (because for as long as he could remember, Rodney McKay didn't do 'nice.' He did awkward, apologetic, caustic, flippant and cautious, but he just didn't know the concept of just being 'nice'—which was a really vague word, now that Kaleb thought about it) before that he really need to let the evidence speak for itself. He read through the email, one that was clearly written over the course of several days. If there was one thing he could say for his brother-in-law, it was that the man was chatty, which was a marked turnaround for the frigid silence from him for the first four years of Jeannie's marriage and Madison's life.

_Dear Jeannie,_

_Yes, we're all alive, and no, none of us are locked up in the infirmary. Have I ever lied to you? (Barring that incident with the radiator when you were six—and really, stealing my chocolate bars in revenge was childish, even for you.) Anyway, it's been a quiet week. After the attempted drowning a few days ago, Pegasus hasn't set out to kill us recently. We found Dr. Nichols and his entire research team yesterday in a network of small caves just barely above the floodplain and the waterline, hungry, bedraggled and wet as shipwrecked rats. A couple of the scientists are still frozen, but Jennifer assures me that her voodoo will get them all back on duty by the end of this week. That ought to cheer Geology up; Carstairs (head of Geology, in case you're lost) is throwing little fits. You'd think this was a major crisis, but he was the one who urged me to let them do the fieldwork _and_ put Nichols in charge of it all. Anyway, pretty much half of the department's on sick leave from colds and whatnot, so I'm short minions. I'm never assigning so many people again to any project. I can't afford for half a department to up and go look at pretty rocks and then end up getting caught in a rockslide that sidelines them all. Still, I guess this will, at least, keep half of the department from running around and making my life miserable with unreasonable requests._

_The added bonus to all of this is that Nichols' arrogance has suffered a healthy blow. I guess even a man with his ego can't stand up to what Pegasus can reduce a person to. At least he's competent enough that he got his entire team and escort away from the glacier and onto high ground (relatively speaking) before the ice dam broke and tried to drown them all. But I already told you about that. In other news, the newest scientists actually are competent. At the very least, they seem to know what they're doing, and none of them have tried to blow up the city, though I suppose with so many of them in one place, it's only a matter of time. But Radek and the rest of my minions are as competent as ever, which besides my genius, is why we're all still in one piece. (And if you tell anyone this, I'll say that you're just making it up and deny it to my dying breath. And Jeannie, I'm fine. Seriously.)_

_How are Madison and Kaleb? Why yes sister of mine, I do possess some measure of social graces (and no, Teyla did not beat them into me, as you may have 'suggested' to her during your last visit! I'm onto you!) Madison's my niece, and I appreciate having a hand in raising the next genius in the McKay family (the little fighter plane was totally Sheppard.) Kaleb's important to you, and he's Madison's father, and all of that counts for something. He's a better father and husband than Dad ever was, and I'll ever be. He's around for both of you, which is more than I can say for Dad, and he pretty much ripped my head off after what happened-you-known-when, which Dad would've never done. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you had to pick a man to marry, I don't think you could've picked a better man than Kaleb._

He stared at the end of the document for a few minutes and then closed it before shutting down his wife's laptop. That had been almost…surreal.

Every time he thought he had his brother-in-law figured out, the man would turn around and say or do something completely jolting and turn all of Kaleb's notions upside. Meredith Rodney McKay was impossible sometimes, probably never spared anyone's feelings in his entire life and competitive as hell, but there was a gentler side to the irritable genius. Kaleb supposed that normal human interactions and social graces fell by the wayside when a person had a distant mother, an even colder father and an intellect the size of a small country. The stories that Jeannie told him about her childhood—how her big brother got beaten up every day by bullies ('He stated treating the bruises like they were badges of honor, like proof he was right about everything.') and how no one really cared except her, about the science fair ('Mum was angry, Dad was furious, he was terrified that he was going to disappear, and none of us did anything about it. He was twelve years old, and I was scared I'd never see him again.'), their parents' cold indifference (' I don't think they knew how to handle someone like me, much less someone like Mer.'), how she made herself play second-best ('I made mistakes on purpose, so people wouldn't think I was as smart as Mer. I think he knew, but he never really said about it. I guess he thought that it was better for me that way. He always took the blame for me when he could.')— made Kaleb grateful every day that Jeannie was as happy with her life as she was. Her childhood had enough events in them to emotionally paralyze a person several lifetimes over. There were moments when he marveled at how out of all the people on this green Earth, she choose to marry him and raise a wonderful daughter and live a completely ordinary life. These past two years had been some of the happiest months of her life, he knew, mainly because she was slowly letting go of her past and reconciling with her brother. It was trying on Kaleb's patience sometimes, especially when Rodney came to visit, but both of them tried hard to get along, for Jeannie's sake, if not Madison's.

There was something off, though, in Rodney's email, especially the last few paragraphs. The tone didn't quite jive with Kaleb's memories of the man, but then again, maybe it was easier for Rodney to be nice on paper than in person. Something, though, told him that didn't sound right. It didn't sound like Rodney. It sounded like someone trying to be Rodney, but not quite pulling it off. He wondered why that impression would come to mind.

He shook his head. He'd probably spent one too many hours in his office chewing out students for plagiarism this academic year and reading too much into a simple email home from a man who didn't know what to say to his formerly estranged sister. Turning out the kitchen lights, the English professor put all disquieting thoughts out of his mind and went upstairs to join his wife in bed.


	2. Hurricane Watch

**Landfall**

By Dragon's Daughter 1980

**Disclaimer**: Other than being a fan, I have absolutely _nothing_ to do with Stargate: Atlantis in _any_ way, shape or form.

**Author's Note:** For people who've watched SG-1, if Lt. Jennifer Hailey seems familiar, it's because she's still alive after six years with the SGC.

**Spoiler Warning**: _The Shrine_

* * *

When she heard the dryer chirp, Jeannie put down her pen and closed her notebook. She turned around to tell Madison to stay put and her heart skipped a beat at the sight of the empty living room floor before she remembered that Kaleb had dropped their daughter off at preschool earlier that morning. It had been their routine for a few months, but it was still disconcerting for her to suddenly be alone in the house again after four years of having someone constantly with her, demanding her attention at every moment, even if it was just on a subconscious level.

The phone rang and she picked up the wireless phone from its cradle before she walked into the laundry room.

"Miller's Residence," she said, opening the dryer and grabbing a laundry basket.

"Jeannie?" said a familiar voice on the other end of the line. She smiled, "Colonel Carter, it's good to hear from you again. How is everything?"

The other woman didn't even bother to correct her about calling her by her first name instead of her title. The two of them were friends after all, both extraordinarily talented female physicists in a male-dominated field and united in their goal of teasing a certain scientist mercilessly. This conversation, however, shifted between the boundaries of simple friendship to the delivery of an unwanted notification by a military official to the next-of-kin.

"Jeannie…" Her heart skipped a beat at the sudden, awful knowledge that something was horribly wrong, "A car's going to pick you up in about two hours."

"What happened?" she managed to choke out through the panic, the laundry forgotten as her mind raced through a list of arrangements that needed to be made. "Is Mer all right? Did something happen to — the city?"

"No, the city is fine," said Carter quietly, "but Mer… You need to pack. He—You need to see him."

"What happened?"

"I—Jeannie, he's alive, but you really need to see him. I have to go."

"Wait!"

"Two hours," repeated Carter and then hung up. Jeannie stared at the phone for a few minutes until the slamming of a neighbor's car door jolted her into motion.

She hit the autodial for her husband's office, and while his phone rang, she took the freshly laundered clothing out of the dryer.

"Miller," he answered, and she held back her panic and the urge to cry.

"It's me, Kaleb."

"What's wrong?" he asked, immediately hearing the distress in her voice. She put the full laundry basket on the living room sofa and resisted the urge to sit down, sink into its cushions and cry.

"Something's happened to Mer; I have to go."

"Do you know what happened?" he asked anxiously. She shook her head, even though he couldn't see the motion.

"No, but… it sounds bad." She quickly climbed up the stairs into their bedroom.

"I'll call my parents, all right? We'll take care of Madison while… if you need anything Jeannie…"

"I know. I've got to pack. I love you."

"I love you too." She ended the call, tossing the wireless phone onto the mattress and pulling out a duffle bag from the closet. Choosing only a few outfits and her personal necessities, she took the packed bag downstairs and set it by the front door. Then she went into Kaleb's study, stood in front of the family safe box, and had one of those laughingly insane moments, wondering if she would need to take her passport with her. After all, she would be crossing an international border in a post-9/11 world; on the other hand, she had an American security clearance at the highest levels that allowed her to travel to another galaxy, for goodness sake!

In the end, she took out her passport and set it on the hallway table. She would ask whoever came to pick her up if it was necessary. Jeannie didn't want to wait longer than necessary to know what had happened to her big brother.

Not knowing what to do with herself, she wandered into the kitchen and completed her partially-finished grocery list, pinning it to the refrigerator door with one of Madison's little alphabet letter. She wondered if there was any significance in her choosing the letter "T" as in 'Trouble.'

Hoping to wrench herself away from her increasingly dark thoughts, she went back to the living room and started folding the still-warm laundry. She was almost done with the piles of clothing when the phone rang, and it took her a moment to remember that she had left it upstairs. A part of her wanted to let it ring, but what if it was a call from Colonel Carter again? She sprinted up the stairs and breathlessly answered, "Hello?"

"Jeannie, it's Claudia," said her mother-in-law kindly. "Kaleb just called me. Are you all right?"

She wanted to break down into tears that no, she was not all right until she saw her brother was fine and just having one of his hypochondriac attacks that freaked her out for nothing so she could start yelling at him for scaring years off of her life. Jeannie inhaled shakily and let it out, "No, not really."

"Is there anything I need to know? Things you need have taken care of but my son will forget about it?"

Jeannie thought for a moment and then said, "There's a shopping list on the refrigerator door. Remind him that the milk's going to expire soon. I think that's it."

"All right. I'll take care of things here; don't worry about Kaleb and Madison. Andrew and I will pick her up from preschool." She paused for a moment, "Let us know when you see your brother."

"That might be a little difficult," replied Jeannie quietly.

"Oh, right," said Claudia, "I forgot. He's overseas?"

"Yes," she hedged, "It's probably going to different to reach me where I'm going." _Unless you can make a phone call across two galaxies_, she added silently.

"Well, let us know when you can."

"I will. Thank you so much Claudia."

"Don't fret about it, Jeannie. Now when are you leaving for the airport?" Jeannie heard a crisp knock on the front door, "I have to go now. My ride is here."

"Go," was all her mother-in-law said before Jeannie hung up the phone, replacing it in the cradle. Then she all but ran to the door, unlocking and opening it. A familiar woman in US Air Force dress blues stood on the front porch.

"Lieutenant Hailey," she greeted with some surprise and a large dose of relief.

"Jennifer, Ma'am," the blonde-haired officer corrected with a small smile. "You ready?"

"Yes, no, wait." Jeannie went and dug out her keys from her purse before she shook her head and slung the entire bag on her shoulder. She ignored the fact that her hands were trembling as she picked up the duffle bag. "Do I need my passport?"

"Probably should take it, Ma'am," advised Hailey, "especially when you come back."

"Good point," she said distractedly.

"Let me take that for you, Mrs. Miller." The younger woman took her bag from her and waited patiently while Jeannie locked the front door before guiding her down to the waiting black government-issued vehicle. "I guess we're giving your neighbors quite a show."

Jeannie shrugged a little as she got into the car, "I think they suspect that I do work for the government." She smiled a little bitterly, "After my kidnapping, I don't think there was any hiding it."

Hailey nodded solemnly as she shut the door.

"Do you know what happened to my brother?"

The other woman shook her head in apology, "No. All I know is that—your brother's unit made an unscheduled contact with the base. They requested your assistance immediately." She tiled her head slightly toward the driver, who was taking them toward the airport and Jeannie nodded in acknowledgement, biting her bottom lip. The driver wasn't SGC; in fact, the man was probably a RCMP officer, judging by the way he knew the streets and traffic patterns around the airport. Hailey couldn't speak freely in front of him.

It was only until the two of them were safely aboard a chartered flight bound for Colorado Springs that Jeannie managed to get anything out of the young American Air Force officer.

"Atlantis made their scheduled data-burst update this morning," she said quietly. "The city's fine, but there was a message from Dr. Woolsey, asking that you come to Atlantis as soon as possible. Apparently…Your brother has a parasitic infection in his brain."

The news knocked the air from her lungs. Jeannie choked back a sob, and shook her head wordlessly. Hailey took her hand in a gesture meant to comfort and looked down, "It—it doesn't look good for him. It's starting to affect his memory."

"Can they reverse it? Operate to get it out?" she asked desperately, unable to imagine her brother as anyone other than Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay, holder of three PhDs with an ego (and intellect) the size of the North American continent. For as long as she could remember, his caustic wit and genius were deeply ingrained parts of him. She struggled to rein in her rising panic.

"I don't know. They're trying." Hailey took in a deep breath, "The Daedalus has already left Earthside, but they'll be dropping out of hyperspace soon. You'll 'gate there, and they'll pick you up from that point. You should be in Pegasus within nine days and in Atlantis in a fortnight."

Jeannie nodded distractedly at the young lieutenant's words. There was a long silence as she struggled to absorb the information and assemble it into something her brain could comprehend. After several fruitless tries, she gave up. This was how people felt when their lives changed, utterly shell-shocked and caught off-guard.

"Why?" she finally whispered.

"I'm sorry?"

"Why are you doing this for me?"

Hailey lifted her shoulders a little, "To be honest? I don't know. Dr. Woolsey just asked for you to come to Atlantis immediately. He didn't say why. Maybe it's because your brother's saved everyone's asses more times than we care to count, pardon my language."

Jeannie waved the apology away, "Don't worry about it. I just… I just find it kind of strange."

"And, well, Colonel Carter thought it was a good idea too. Or they found something, but they need your help to fix it so it'll work."

"Mer's got a department full of brilliant scientists."

Hailey grinned a little, "Yeah, but there are only two McKays in the universe who have the ability to outthink each other. They might appreciate the assistance in any way possible."

Jeannie nodded, "Maybe."

Still, she clung onto the faint hope that the other woman offered through their conversation. As the plane soared through the bright, cloudless skies of Earth, she prayed silently, _Mer, please be okay, please be okay…_


	3. Hurricane Warning

**Landfall**

By Dragon's Daughter 1980

**Disclaimer**: Other than being a fan, I have absolutely _nothing_ to do with Stargate: Atlantis in _any_ way, shape or form.

**Author's Note:** In case anyone was wondering why this story earned a higher than usual rating for me, Jeannie Miller loses control over her vocabulary in this chapter. I can't say that I blame her.

**Spoiler Warning**: _The Shrine_

* * *

"Lieutenant Cadman, can I speak with you for a moment?"

"Yes sir," she said, handing the ship's manifest to Private O'Conner who took the clipboard without dropping out of attention. She smiled slightly at the man who stared back at her expressionlessly, which pretty much was the Air Force equivalent of 'scared witless' — when Marines panicked, they joked and cussed; when Zoomies panicked, they went quiet and thoughtful.

Laura made a mental note to have a private talk with O'Connor before they got to Atlantis; the man needed to relax a little, especially in front of superior officers. If he didn't, for one thing, it would definitely weird Colonel Sheppard out. It would probably also earn the private a lot of ribbing from the Old Guard already posted there to the city's forces. Besides, while Colonel Caldwell wasn't an emotional man, as long as you respected the chain of command and performed your duties with due diligence, there wasn't any point in treating him like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. She pointedly shoved old memories involving a ZPM, a Goa'uld, and a computer program back into the depths of her mind as she walked out of the hallway with her (current) commanding officer. He led her into a private corner of the ship's hold, tucked out of sight from passersby.

"We'll be dropping out of hyperspace in a few seconds," he told her in a low voice, just before the Daedalus vibrated, the sound of its engine changing from the steady humming of the hyperdrive to the deeper rumbling of its regular thrusters. He looked away from her slightly and touched his earpiece, "Acknowledged. Can you take us to—thank you Hermiod, please let me know when we're in position."

A moment later, he looked at her again, "Dr. Miller will be joining us aboard this ship. While she's here, I'd like you to keep an eye on her." If a man like Colonel Caldwell could squirm, Laura would swear he was doing it.

"Dr. Miller, sir?" she asked cautiously, because he had said the woman's name like she knew the person, which Laura wasn't sure she did. He cleared his throat, "Dr. McKay's sister, Jean Miller."

"Oh," she said, remembering the lively woman who stood up to Atlantis' resident genius without flinching. "Yes, sir. That won't be a problem."

"This doesn't go beyond you, Lieutenant," he said, giving her a stern look, and she stiffened to attention. Yes, she knew the best gossip that floated around two galaxies when it come to SGC personnel, but she knew when to keep her mouth shut—out of security, out of duty, out of respect. In her own way, she respected Rodney. (Besides, it was _not_ her fault that he panicked every time she walked into the room. It wasn't like she'd _asked_ the Wraith Dart to scope them both up….) He had saved her life and the lives of everyone on Atlantis more than once, and well, after their little forced mind-meld, she got to know the human side of the sarcastic scientist. At the SGC, people gave her odd looks when she had mentioned once or twice that underneath all that acidic attitude, Dr. McKay was just a big teddy bear at heart. On Atlantis though, people nodded in silent agreement, and then looked over their shoulders to check to make sure he wasn't in earshot. A little tact for his sake was something she didn't have a problem with at all, especially if the situation was serious enough to call a civilian wife and mother away from her family on such short notice. Caldwell stared at her and then nodded sharply, once. "Dr. McKay's fallen ill. Dr. Woolsey has asked for her to come to Atlantis to help."

Instinctively sensing the severity of the situation, Laura swallowed, "Yes sir."

"You're excused from your current duties. I leave everything else at your discretion."

"Yes sir," she said firmly, sensing the unspoken undercurrent of his orders: 'look after Jeannie Miller, because her brother is one of _us_.' More than anything, the permanent personnel on the Daedalus had come to view the people on Atlantis as extended relatives and the same attitude prevailed in the city toward the ship's crew. No matter what, they took care of each other. "I'll keep you in the loop."

He blinked once and then the corners of his lips twitched slightly, "Thank you, Lieutenant. We're beaming her up to the bridge."

She nodded and followed him as they wound their way through the corridors of the ship. As they walked, Laura wondered what had happened to Rodney, and she hoped that he would pull through this latest crisis as he had all the crises before this one.

* * *

Laura fumbled for the light, belatedly recognizing the warbled chirp for the summons that it was. In her half-slumbering state, she had thought it was merely an extension of a bizarre dream involving a dancing whale in a pink tutu and drunken Death Eaters in neon pink robes. Hooking the radio over her ear, she said, "Cadman here."

"We just got a communiqué from Atlantis," the Colonel's voice jolted her wide awake and she didn't pretend that her heart skipped a beat.

"Rod—Dr. McKay?" she asked, already dressing.

"He's still alive," was the grim response. "Wake your team and Dr. Miller. We're going to reach Pegasus in about three hours. Get some food into everyone. We'll be dropping you and your team off at the first available 'gate."

"Yes sir," she said, mentally running a list of required equipment her team would need to escort a civilian through the Pegasus Galaxy without getting fed on or, in other ways, killed. "Anything else, sir?"

"Atlantis is standing by for radio contact and I've been told that your G.D.O. code has been reactivated."

"Got it." The silence on the other end of the earpiece told her that the conversation had been cut. Thinking for a moment, she decided to call the other Lantean Marine returning from an R&R on Earth. Tapping on her earpiece with her free hand as she repacked her duffle bags, she said, "Cadman to Reeves."

"Reeves here," drawled his familiar voice. "Where's the fire?"

"Get everyone up. We're escorting Dr. Miller to Atlantis."

"Right, we'll meet you in the armory?" There were reasons why she loved Lenny Reeves — one of them was that he never asked why something had to be done. He just did it. He was smart enough to know when to interpret orders into something that resembled the intent of the command, but was less likely to get everyone killed along the way, and when to just do what he was told. This time, it was the latter.

"No, grab some stuff to last you a week," she said, "then meet in the mess. Colonel's orders. We eat first before we go."

"Aye Aye Ma'am," he said, a hint of fond mockery in his voice. She wasn't in the mood to say anything back and let it go. Taking a backpack of essential personal belongings with her and some clothes, she walked out into the nearly deserted corridors. Even though it was impossible to maintain a normal sleep-schedule on a spaceship, the lighting system still went through a day-night cycle of twenty-six hours, a programming compromise between Earth and Atlantis. At the current moment, it was 0437 hours which meant that other than the night crew and the insomniacs, everyone was asleep.

She quietly rang Jeannie Miller's doorchime. A moment later, the door slid open and a pale-faced physicist stared at her. There was fear in the older woman's face but her voice was steady, "Yes, Laura?"

"We need to go. Can I come in?"

"Yes," she stepped back and Laura dropped her pack right inside the door.

"Dress warmly," she instructed, closing a laptop and notebook filled with equations, "and I'll start packing up your belongings."

"Wait, what's going on?"

"We're going to get beamed down in about two hours and a half," she said, quickly checking her watch. "So you need to get dressed and packed before we meet up with the rest of my team and get something to eat."

"Two hours and a half?" asked Jeannie, picking up a brush and quickly it through her hair, tying it back from her face before she grabbed some clothes from her duffle bag and disappeared into the small bathroom. "We're that close to the city?"

"No," Laura prayed that Jeannie wouldn't start asking questions she didn't have the answers to, "we're still about a week out."

"Then why—oh fuck!"

Laura stared at the closed door for a few seconds. Logically, she knew that Jeannie knew how to cuss, she just never thought someone as friendly and open as the other woman was, would ever swear out loud.

"Everything okay in there?" she called.

"I'm fine," was the semi-irritated reply. She came out a few minutes later, when Laura was just about done packing her belongings. Jeannie handed over a small bag that the younger woman silently tucked into the duffle pack.

"All right, is that everything you need?"

Jeannie took a look around the room and nodded, "Yes."

"Come on then, we should get something to eat."

She nodded, looking strained as they stepped out into the hallway together. Laura took both of their belongings, though that only lasted about three strides before she found herself in a miniature tug-of-war with the petite physicist. In order to spare herself the indignity of being seen tugging over a civil tussle in public, she let Jeannie take her own pack.

They met up with Reeves and the rest of their crew— Rick Pileggi and Tony Savasta — in the officer's mess. A warning glance from Laura leveled in the men's direction kept conversation to a minimum. It was way too early to be dealing with banter and she wasn't sure that the other woman would be able to handle it like she usually did. Jeannie ate a little and said less, even though she did nurse two cups of military-style coffee in less than twenty minutes.

Getting outfitted took less time than Laura thought it would, probably because the group was slowly but surely picking up on Jeannie's restless panic. The civilian had hidden it well during the eight days she had been aboard, but the rumors had quietly spread about Rodney falling seriously ill and his sister traveling to see him. By now, pretty much everyone knew the news, if not the actual details, and all of them liked Jeannie McKay enough to pretend they didn't know. It helped having an entire crew of battleship provide convenient distractions to keep one sister from thinking too much about her brother's health. Laura knew she would have to talk to Evan when they got to the city and figure out how to thank the crew, big time.

Going up to the bridge knitted out in off-world gear was a little bizarre, but she stifled the urge to fidget as they dropped out of hyperspace and got close enough to the planet they were looking to 'gate from. There were more bizarre circumstances in the Pegasus Galaxy to deal with, and she'd already survived a couple of them. Jeannie hovered nearby her, unknowingly standing in the middle of a loose, protective circle formed by Laura's team.

After a quick lifesigns-scan that confirmed no Wraith were in the area, the five of them were beamed down from the Daedalus onto the slippery surface of an ice tundra. It was blindingly bright as they all struggled to orient themselves properly. Tony managed to catch Jeannie before she slipped and Lenny was there to offer a bracing hand as Laura dialed Atlantis' address. A few minutes later, they were in the thankfully warm city.

"Dr. Miller, thank you for coming here," said Dr. Woolsey, greeting them as the Stargate disengaged. "Please come this way."

Colonel Sheppard and Dr. Keller stood behind the current leader of the city. The young CMO looked haggard, as if she hadn't slept well in weeks. There was a grim look in Sheppard's eyes, a tight look of concealed pain, one that reminded her all too much of when Carson — Laura shut that pain away, firmly pretending it didn't exist.

While Jeannie was quickly escorted away to the infirmary, Laura led her team to the armory to put away their gear and stow their bags in their quarters. As they walked however, she began to casually lag behind her teammates until she was walking alone in the corridor. When a man's heavier tread joined hers less than a minute later, she asked, "How bad is it?"

"It's…it's bad," responded Evan as he walked beside her, mindful of the scientists roaming distractedly though the hallways. "Jennifer knows what's wrong with him, but everything she's tried hasn't worked and…"

The XO of Atlantis shook his head, "It's like he's slipping away right in front of us. Half the time, he's not even sure where he is. Before Jennifer confined him… You'd talk to him about something in the morning and two hours later, he wouldn't know your name, much less whatever you told him."

She cursed quietly, "There's nothing we can do?"

"Ronon's talked about a sacred shrine that can help, but…"

"But?"

"Besides the fact that it's on a major Wraith outpost, it supposedly gives someone with McKay's disease only one extra day."

"And then?" prompted Laura with dread as they stepped over the threshold into the deserted armory.

"You die."

She froze in the act of setting down her handgun and stared at him in shock, before repeating incredulously, "You _die_."

Leaning against a nearby locker, Evan nodded in agreement to her tone, "It's one hell of a gift."

"I'll say," she muttered, clearing the firearm and putting it back in its holster. She stripped herself of the rest of her weapons, clearing them of ammunition before putting them back into their proper spots. "How did this happen?"

"We're not sure," he confessed with a sigh. "The current theory is that he got infected off-world somehow. The week before he started showing symptoms, Sheppard's team got caught in a glacial melt that flooded an entire valley. He might have picked it up then. No one else has it."

"Damn," Laura said, shaking her head. She didn't get along with Rodney very well, mostly because he was terrified of her for some reason. She supposed having had to coexist with her in his brain for a couple of days had something to do with that, and that impulsive last kiss that turned out, thankfully, not to be a last kiss… Yes, there were reasons, but honestly, even a man like Rodney with an ego the size of a galaxy didn't deserve to die like this.

She hung up her tactical vest and shut her locker door, "So what else's been going on?"

Evan gestured toward the door, "Walk and talk?"

Laura smiled a little, "When haven't we done that, Major?"

"We haven't heard anything about Michael and his hybrids recently," he told her, his expression telling her volumes about how comforting _that_ news was to the experienced soldiers on the expedition.

As they headed toward the infirmary, her learning all the relevant news that wouldn't be passed on during the reorientation debriefing from him, Laura prayed that somehow, yet again, Atlantis and their people would be able to pull off another miracle and save one of their own.


End file.
